


We Are Bound, You and I

by ashesandhoney



Series: It Came From Tumblr (Ficlet Collections) [5]
Category: Infernal Devices Series - Cassandra Clare
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Ficlet Collection, M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-07-17
Updated: 2018-01-12
Packaged: 2018-07-24 13:51:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 14
Words: 12,580
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7510793
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ashesandhoney/pseuds/ashesandhoney
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A collection of short Heronstairs AUs from my backlog of tumblr prompts. Some of them are modern fluff AUs but a lot of them cover more unusual AU scenarios.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Modern AU - Witness Protection

Will stared at Jem like he’d just told him the world was flat but he was already dozing off. He was heavy and close and had wrapped one of those surprisingly strong arms around Will’s waist. Will lay on his back and stared at the ceiling and let the words play through his mind over and over and over. Muttered and so soft they were almost a whisper but they had been clear.

“I love you,” he had said.

Will couldn’t remember how to breathe so he just matched his breaths to Jem’s and tried to calm his heart rate. Things said during sex did not count. Will knew that. It was one of those rules of hook-ups. If you believed the things that people said during sex, your heart got broken, always.

Jem had been clear. Sober and wide awake, he had made it all very clear. He wasn’t looking for love or even a relationship, they weren’t even quite friends with benefits because they rarely saw each other outside of this. Nights where they spoke in whispers and held onto each other like lovers but always woke up alone.

Will had started it. He had gone up to the uncomfortable looking guy in the bar because he had been beautiful and lonely. Near white hair, dark eyes, thin and tall. Beautiful. And either deeply closeted or an orphan with no friends. Will had been sure of the first until they had met at a coffee shop and Jem had kissed him like it was as easy as breathing. The idea of him truly being as lonely as he looked broke Will’s heart.

The relationship was all text messages and meet-ups and kissing in dark corners and never anything personal. Jem didn’t talk about his family or his friends. Sometimes he dropped details that Will gathered up like they were pearls. He played the violin. He didn’t like poetry. He was a fan of the kind of strange art film that didn’t quite make sense and weren’t necessarily in English. He had seen every episode of Monty Python. He spoke more than one language but hadn’t said what.

Then that night, Jem had shown up at his door without so much as a text. Eyes intense and expression a little bit wild and when Will had let him in, rather than take him to bed or sit at the little dining room table in Will’s tiny kitchen, he had wrapped his arms around Will and held on for a long time. Will had been startled by it but had held him just as tightly. Had put his arms around Jem’s back, ran his fingers through that white gray hair and waited until Jem’s heart rate had gone back to normal. They’d made it to bed and then this.

Nothing said during sex counted, Will reminded himself but he still wrapped the words around himself like they were a lifeline.

“I love you,” Will whispered into the silent room.

* * *

[feel free to stop here if you want to imagine that this is fluffy and cute or you can continue on for heart ache and pain]

* * *

In the morning he was still there. Awake and there. He lay with his head on Will’s shoulder and it was the patterns he traced with his fingers that woke Will. They had been sharing a bed for months, sometimes multiple times a week but this was the most intimate moment that Will had ever woken up to in his life. He stared at the top of Jem’s head as his fingers traced higher and ran along the ridge of Will’s collarbone before traveling back down.

Will swallowed and very tentatively put his hand on Jem’s back, just between his shoulder blades. Will felt the smile against his chest as Jem’s cheek pulled up and it made him bolder. So warm and still tracing patterns that left trails down Will’s skin. Will ran his fingers through the soft hair at the very nape of his neck and he cuddled a little closer.

“I won’t be back,” Jem whispered.

“What?” Will’s voice came out louder and harsher than he wanted. The moment wobbled by didn’t break.

“I’m being relocated,” Jem said.

“For work?” Will asked. He tried to make it a joke though Jem’s voice hadn’t been silly, “You can give me a new number. We can be just friends until the next time you’re in town.”

“When I was twelve, some older kids invited me to hang out with them. I thought I was so cool. By the end of that year, they had me running errands for one of the nastier gangs. Not here, this was up north. I was also completely addicted. I didn’t even know what it was until it was too late,” his voice was soft and far away and Will’s hand was still stroking through his hair as he stared down in horror.

“Two years later, my mother tried to get my out. They told me if I left I would regret it but I wanted it to be over so badly I think I didn’t really care if they found and killed me. If free wasn’t an option then maybe dead wouldn’t be so bad,” Jem told him and the story tapered off.

“What happened?” Will asked.

“They didn’t kill me,” Jem said and the words were empty and dispassionate as though he were talking about math problems or car repairs, “The police actually arrested me first. The junkie son must have done it, killed her for drug money. I was cleared and I agreed to testify. It’s been three years while they build the case. Not just the murder, it’s a giant drug case, it will be in the news whether or not we win. But it starts next month. I’m being put under more intensive protection, I think they called it but it won’t be here.”

“My god, James,” Will said, “I am so sorry.”

“My name isn’t James,” he said.

“I don’t care,” Will said. He twisted and slid down in the bed so that he could look Jem in the eye. Words failed and so he leaned in and kissed him. They had kissed but it had never felt like this. They held on. Jem holding as tightly as Will did.

“You can’t come back?” Will said.

“No, I’ll be a target even after it’s all over. Win or lose, I will always be a target. It’s a price I am willing to pay for this. I just wanted to say goodbye, you’re the thing I’ll miss most. I thought it would be easier to disappear, my protection team is probably pissing themselves. I was supposed to be in the van at 10am today,” Jem said.

“It’s only 8,” Will said.

“But I don’t want to leave yet, they’ll wait for me,” Jem said and he dropped his face down against Will’s shoulder and pulled him in tighter.

“I make good pancakes,” Will said and got a laugh for that. They didn’t get up yet. They stayed twisted around each other and Will listened to stories about Jem’s mother and his childhood and traded for stories about his sisters and his job. After 10, after his van to some new secret life should have left, they made their way into the kitchen.

They made pancakes and Jem kept touching him in the kitchen. Shoulder to shoulder as they watched the bubbles in the pan like they held answers. Whenever Will passed by, Jem pressed a kiss to whatever skin he could reach. An entire pan of pancakes burned when he caught Will’s neck and Will fell still while he kissed a line up his throat.

“Jian,” Jem said and Will looked up at him, “I care. You said you didn’t but I do. There is no one left alive who cared about me and called me by that name. Jian Ming. My mother signed me up for school as David but I never liked that. I like James better than David but my name is Ke Jian Ming.”

“Ke Jian Ming,” Will repeated and got a very sad smile for it, “And I do, care about you, I do.”

“In another life, William, maybe we’ll find each other again,” Jem said.

Breakfast and another two hours of whispered conversation and other things in bed and Jem finally turned his phone back on and called the number that had left four messages. They came to get him, to pick him up from Will’s door in a nondescript minivan and there was a lot of glaring from some very intimidating looking cops. Jem ignored them all and pressed one last kiss to Will’s mouth.

“Good bye,” Jem said.

“I love you, Jian,” Will said.

He didn’t say it back. He got in the car and Will stared after it until it was out of view. He went back inside and lay down in the bed that still smelled a little like Jem.

Three days later a tourist stop postcard showed up in his mailbox. He pulled it out, expecting something chintzy from one of his sisters. Instead it was unsigned and had no return address. It was from the next town north.

“I love you.”


	2. Modern Canon AU - Bodies in the Kitchen

“You need to stop leaving dead bodies in my kitchen,” Will said and his voice, shockingly didn’t waver. He might as well have been talking to a cat with a bloody mouse at his feet. 

“He’s not dead,” Jem said looking down at his equivalent of a bloody mouse. The man had been beaten severely enough that Will couldn’t say what he actually looked like. 

“Shit,” Will said, “What do you need?”

“Anything that can be used as bandages and boiled water for sterilization if you could put the kettle on for me,” Jem said. 

He was eerily calm. He was always eerily calm. Will had met Jem when he was six years old. The Shadowhunter who came to try and entice him away from his family had brought along his own son, either because Shadowhunters didn’t believe in daycare or because he thought it might have enticed Will to join up. 

“I can teach you how to throw knives properly,” Jem had said with a little bit of pride when his father had asked him what his favourite part of being a Shadowhunter was. Still, Will had refused. Jem had been there when the second meeting came when he was twelve and finally on the third when he had been 18 and he had given the Clave what he had hoped was the final refusal. 

That should have been the end of it but two years later, James Carstairs had come through the window of his kitchen with a broken stele and a severely dislocated arm. He’d also started going gray though he couldn’t be more than twenty one. He’d stared at Will - not recognizing him for a moment but thoroughly surprised that he could be seen. He had climbed up a fire escape and through the first open window in order to try and fix his arm before whatever was chasing him got to him. 

Will had lent him his father’s stele and helped him pop his shoulder back into the socket without either of them throwing up. 

He hadn’t actually brought a dead body that time but in the three years since, he’d brought along pixies in a cage. A drunk werewolf. A dead body that hadn’t actually been dead yet and had melted into ichor on Will’s tile. 

It had become a strange ritual. Months in between visits and then Jem would be there on his fire escape, bloody or burned or just in need of someone to talk to. Will was fairly certain it was against Clave law but neither of them were telling. 

Once Jem’s battered friend, who had runes under his torn gear, had the claw in his stomach removed and been bandaged and stitched up, Jem stopped to smile at Will. 

“I sometimes wish I’d made the other choice,” Will said. 

“Do you really?” Jem asked. 

“Yes and every time that urge comes on for adventure and excitement, you show up on my windowsill to remind me that I am just fine,” Will said. 

“If you change your mind, I’ll still teach you how to throw knives,” Jem said. 

Then he was pulling the groggy, still half delirious Shadowhunter back out onto the fire escape and down into the night. Will sat at the window and watched him go. When he got to the street he looked up and gave Will a smile that made him want to abandon everything and follow this strange person into the dark. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In this world, Jem grew up in England and didn’t lose his parents until he was nineteen. Which is why Will notes his silvering hair so late in the timeline - it’s also why he’s lonely enough to come back to Will originally - because Will was something he shared with his father and bein with Will reminds him of that - after that first or second time though, he comes back because he likes spending time with Will.


	3. Modern AU - Exchange Student

Will had been sure he was ready for this. He had done all the research, done as much extra language study as it was possible to cram in, he had watched videos and read tip websites.

And his first week had been a disaster of stumbled pronunciation and accents he didn’t understand and while his classes were in Mandarin, half the city got by in a language that bore about as much resemblence to something he understood as German did to English slang. He had gotten on the wrong bus and then gotten on the wrong bus again trying to go back. His advisor at the school had rescheduled their appointment 4 times and he’d eventually had to go to the enrollment office and beg his schedule off of them without her.

He was exhausted and homesick and it had only been a week. How had his sense of adventure died so fast? When was the jetlag going to fade? Had he offended his landlady badly enough that she was going to throw him out? Why couldn’t he find any of the cereal he liked in any store he went to.

He looked down at his course book and sighed. He was at the library because he was still confident in his ability to pass his classes and he needed to hang onto being confident about something.

“Dad, no, I am in the library, I’ll call you later,” the whispered conversation the next cubicle over was in English and Will frowned at the wall between them. It wasn’t that English was rare, especially at the school it was pretty common, but it had been a British accent. The homesick corner of Will’s heart made him lean around the little wall.

“Where are you from?” he asked.

The boy in the next stall gave him a half smile. He had near white hair and brown eyes and said in a local accent, “Luwan,” before switching back to sounding like a prep school kid from London, “Not that far south of here. I grew up near the river.”

“Oh, sorry, you sounded… I hadn’t heard many British accents here,” Will said with a shrug before attempting to retreat back into his own space.

“Dad is a Brit. Northern England somewhere I think, but I’ve never been,” the stranger said and Will leaned back to look at him, “You’re a new exchange student?”

“Been here a week,” Will said.

“Are you done?” he nodded at Will’s pile of books.

“Yeah,” Will said.

“Come on then, time to see the parts of the campus that aren’t on the brochures,” he said.

“My mother told me no running off with strangers,” Will said.

“My name is Jian, James if you want something more British. Now you know four things about me. I’m not a stranger anymore,” he said.

“It’s like we have been friends since birth,” Will said in Mandarin sweeping his books into his backpack and standing up to follow Jian out of the library. Once they were outside, Jian turned to him with a grin and started up a fast paced tour of all the seedier corners of campus in a mishmash of Mandarin and English and full of ridiculous jokes that left Will laughing. Maybe surviving the next four months wouldn’t be as difficult as he had feared.


	4. Modern AU - Kiss at a Party

“If you two keep spending all youd time together, people are going to think you’re dating,” the guy at the party had said.

Will, being Will, had tossed his knees up over Jem’s lap and leaned in so his chin was set on Jem’s shoulder and said, “Who says we aren’t?”

Jem laughed but didn’t push him off. He wasn’t sure how far Will would take the joke and that was making his stomach twist. People in the room were watching and that set him on edge. Will, of course, wasn’t bothered in the least.

The guy across from them laughed. He might have been one of Will’s friends. Will had all these casual friends across campus that Jem couldn’t keep track of.

“You’re straighter than I am, Herondale,” he said.

“You’ve got to be really gay for that to be true,” Will said.

“You are going to take this too far,” Jem muttered in Mandarin.

“Tell me where the line is and I swear I’ll stop there. Otherwise, yeah, way too far,” Will whispered back but he was speaking into Jem’s ear and it wasn’t doing anything to dispel either the twist in his stomach or the show that they were putting on.

“You’re screwing with me, there’s no way you’d kiss him,” someone in their little audience said.

Will laughed and pulled away with a shrug. Jem laughed as well and then followed him back and pressed a kiss to his mouth. Will laughed harder and caught his face in a hand. Jem had been sure that the brush of lips was as far as it was going to go but through the laughter Will kissed him properly and he forgot where he was for a split second.

The crowd pulled him back into himself hard and fast. Will was already laughing it off with a little bit of posturing and some well place joke while Jem tried to keep up.

A drunken college party didn’t have much attention span and soon the conversation moved on to other things and Jem made his escape for the backyard. He needed air.

Will found him by the back fence where he was leaning with his eyes closed. He knew it was Will as soon as he heard the footsteps. He didn’t need to open his eyes as he leaned back against the wood so they were side by side.

“That was too far,” Will said.

“Just a little,” Jem said.

“Too much tongue?” Will asked.

Jem let the feeling building in his chest explode as laughter before it became honesty, “Too many people.”

“There isn’t anyone out here,” Will said.

“No,” Jem agreed but he didn’t open his eyes. Will leaned into him and he turned into it without looking. He worried that this was some sort of dare right up until Will kissed him. It was too gentle and too tentative for a dare, just a brush of lips that he felt all the way down his spine. He smiled into it and cupped a hand around Will’s neck to pull him in a little closer.


	5. Modern AU - High School

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It’s high school all-human? Who am I? I don’t even know anymore. I mean, HS AH where Jem has a terminal illness but still HS AH. Somebody send help. Someone else has taken over my brain.

“It looks like you’re in trouble there. Can I help?” Jem started to curl his lip and say something rude but he made eye contact with the person standing above him first and it stopped the comment in its tracks. Ridiculously handsome. The description wouldn’t come together any more clearly than that but it blotted out all the nasty things he was going to say. The guy had a smile on is face that was just mocking enough to be deserving of the rudeness but Jem lost his nerve.

“I’m fine, thank you,” Jem ground out.

He’d fallen. That wouldn’t have been so embarrassing on its own but he was fairly certain he’d fractured his ankle on the way down. It wasn’t as uncommon as he would have liked. The latest medicine his doctor had dug up played havoc with his bone density and he was sure he was going to end up as the only patient under 65 with a broken hip before the end of the year.

“You’re sure?” the guy hadn’t left. Jem had been running options in his head of how to get up without further injuring the foot or calling too much attention to himself. He looked up again. Dark hair, blue eyes, a less mocking version of the same smile and just a little crease between his eyes.

“I might have fractured my ankle,” Jem said.

There were any number of asshole comments to that and Jem had heard most of them. Not about this. He’d never broken a bone on school property before but about all the little things he didn’t do. Things he couldn’t do but wasn’t prepared to explain why to anyone in that ridiculous small town school. So he was the class oddity. His parents were right, if he told them, they’d treat him differently. But differently meant with pity and Jem would rather they ignore him than look at him like that.

At least he was an outcast not a target. An attempt at bullying when he’d first moved to town had ended with the asshole nursing a black eye and declaring him not worth the trouble. That had been before the newest drug. The old one had made his head fuzzy and made thinking complex thoughts next to impossible. He might not be able to throw a decent punch anymore but the trade off was worth it. Jem would rather remember the last years of his life being full of broken bones than lose them to the haze.

“Damn,” the guy above him said and held out a hand. He did it simply and easily. He hadn’t got the memo on the campus pariah yet. This was the new guy. Transfer from somewhere but Jem hadn’t heard any of the rumours beyond New Guy. Jem took the hand and let himself be pulled up and held on for a moment while he waited to see if his other ankle was going to hold. It did and he let out a little sigh of relief.

“Thanks,” Jem said starting to pull away but New Guy held on to his hand.

“I’m going to help you to the office, you’re not going to be able to walk on that,” he said.

“Oy Carstairs, you fall on your face again?” a voice from somewhere behind him. All the rude comments he hadn’t thrown at New Guy built up in his chest. He half turned to see Rupert crossing the quad and considered not biting back to the commentary at all. “Be careful of this one Will, I hear he’s looking for a boyfriend.”

“Are you?” Will spoke to Jem, not to Rupert. Rupert might as well have been on another planet. It was a teasing comment but there was none of Rupert’s malice in it and Jem told himself that was why he answered the way he did.

“Well, there’s certainly no one worth dating in this pool,” Jem said with a little jerk of his head at Rupert who made a noise that might have been offended before he turned it into a sneer. Jem barely noticed because Will laughed and his face lit up with a big ridiculous smile that made him painfully beautiful.

“I thought the hot ones were always straight or taken,” Will said and Jem laughed. Sharp and surprised. It sort of erupted out of him and Will grinned back. Then he pulled the hand he hadn’t let go of during the short conversation up over his shoulder and half carried Jem down the path towards the office. If anyone yelled out any comments, Jem didn’t hear them over the sound of Will’s laughter in his ear.


	6. Sci-Fi AU - Doctor/Test Subject

Jem’s head hurt and his eyes fluttered open to bright lights. A shadow above him blocked it for a moment and he shut his eyes again in relief. Memories of where he was came slowly. Very slowly but they made him force his eyes open again. The dark haired doctor, the young one who always looked miserable, was above him. Jem waited until he could focus enough to determine that the man had blue eyes before he tried to say anything.

“Wha’ happ’m?” he managed to grind out and his voice sounded raw and broken.

“I thought you were dead,” the doctor said.

“I thought that was the plan,” Jem said in a clearer voice.

“They’re not trying to kill you,” he said.

“Could have fooled me,” Jem said.

“The research-” he started.

“Will save countless lives, so I’ve heard. I just didn’t expect it to hurt this much when I-” he paused before he chose the word, “started,” instead of the expected volunteered or the more truthful explanations that included ‘dragged’ and 'conscripted’ and 'blacked out van windows.’ They called them all volunteers, Jem wondered sometimes if any of them really were.

In a surprising show of compassion, the doctor helped him sit up and he swung his legs over the side of the gurney. A wave of nostalgia for a time with real beds washed through him. He had hardly grown up in the lap of luxury, almost no one grew up in luxury any more, but at least he had had a bed once. These post treatment rooms were stark, even more so than the dormitory where the volunteers usually slept. Those beds were cots: canvas and metal, he wanted a mattress and a duvet.

He caught sight of himself over the doctor’s shoulder in a large - probably made of one way glass - mirror. He stood though he wasn’t strong enough for it and had to be caught. He barely noticed that the man beside him had to hold him up. He leaned against him and stared. The colour had been bleached out of him. His hair was a cascade of silver-white and even his eyes were no longer brown but a nearly colourless iridescent-gray that caught light like a cat’s. He touched his hair just to be sure that it was real. His skin was paler too. He was supposed to be browner than this. The hair in his fingers when he shook some strands forward so he could see it shimmered dully in the florescent light.

“It’s fine, you’re fine, it’s just a side effect,” the doctor was saying into his ear, soft and comforting. He pushed Jem back until he was sitting again. He was warm and solid and smelled like soap that probably came with a label on it instead of just flat white bars that smells faintly on antiseptic like everything else in this place.

“How long do you think I have left?” he asked.

The doctor looked alarmed. He was still standing too close for normal clinical procedures but Jem didn’t care. He leaned his head forward and buried his face against the lab coat covered shoulder in front of him. W. Herondale said the little name plate. He only caught it for a moment. He needed to blot out the world for a little bit. There was a hand on his shoulder but W. Herondale hesitated before pushing him away very gently.

“I’ll take you back to your room,” he said.

“I want to walk,” Jem said.

“Alright,” he said.

Walking involved a lot of leaning and halfway down the corridor, he regretted the demand but it had been so long since anyone had given him something he wanted - even the right to walk down the hall - that he didn’t complain. W. Herondale kept a hand by his elbow and needed to steady him a few times. Outside the dormitory, Jem stopped and leaned against the doctor. He could have leaned against the wall but he didn’t.

“What’s the W for?” he asked leaning a shoulder against his chest and bending his head close to speak softly.

“Will,” he said.

“Thank you, Will,” he said, “Maybe I’ll see you again before this kills me.”

He didn’t wait for a response. He pushed the door open himself - it opened like any other door if you were on this side - and went inside to curl up on his cot and try to commit his own face more securely to memory before he could get used to seeing silver eyes staring out of his face instead of his mother’s dark brown.


	7. Modern AU - Sharing A Park Bench

Will read in the park for only one reason. Oh he told his friends and family that he enjoyed the fresh air and that it was a welcome distraction from his job and his studies but those weren’t the real reasons. The real reason was the violinist.

The violinist played covers of pop songs and pieces written by Bach and Mozart and composers that Will couldn’t name. He was as tall as Will was but thinner. He was unsettlingly beautiful. Not girlish, but still beautiful was a better word than handsome. He was smiles and kindnesses and would crouch down to talk to children who asked him ridiculous questions. The week after he was asked to play “Let It Go” by a seven year old girl with a braid over her shoulder, he had learned it.

Will did not sit near him. He didn’t want to be noticed. He sat near enough to hear and each week he’d walk by and drop too much money in the violinist’s case while he was talking and smiling with someone else. Will sat on the bench around the flower garden so that usually, his back was to the boy who threw all of himself in to each song. When it was a busy Saturday, he’d turn and look and watch the way he moved like the music was being pulled out of every inch of him.

Will had an ereader onto which he had loaded very nearly every poem he’d ever read so that he could read things that matched up with the day’s selections. He got to know the moods of the violinist with his flashing eyes and bleached out hair. Some days were melancholic. Some days were joyous. Some days were about nature and slow edges. Some days were vibrant and almost ridiculous.

Every single Saturday afternoon, he made his way here. He reorganized plans to make it happen. He found his violinist and gave up two or three hours to just listening and reading.

Or he did until the day that the violinist wasn’t playing. Will got to the park and settled in on his bench and there was no music. Disappointment rolled through him like he was being denied things far deeper than a free musical performance. He opened his reader and read his favourites and tried to remember what the music was supposed to sound like. A solitary violin lifting and falling and turning like the notes were steps in a dance.

Someone dropped down beside him in a rush of hurried energy and Will broke away from his poems and his memories of melodies to look at the interruption. It was his violinist. His violinist had dropped onto his bench with his violin case and a distant look in his eye. Without the instrument and the crowd of onlookers and his smile, he was strangely human. Not as ethereal as Will usually imagined him to be.

Just a boy with a leather case.

“Are you alright?” Will asked him.

“Of course,” he said but he looked at Will with eyes like the forest at night. So dark they were almost black but layered and deep. He wore a jacket pushed to his elbows and he didn’t so much hold the violin case as cradle it.

“Will you play today?” Will asked because he didn’t have anything else to say.

“I have an audition tonight,” the boy said, “I should be practicing. I shouldn’t be playing silly Disney songs and that same Prelude over and over. I should be practicing.”  

“They’ll love you,” Will said. There was honest fear in the boy’s voice, like he doubted that he was capable of the audition. Will couldn’t imagine it. He couldn’t imagine anyone choosing someone else when this person was one of the options. How could they?

“You’re needlessly kind,” he said with a laugh.

“I come here, every week and listen to you,” Will said which was far more true than he had intended. His obsession was his secret and here he was blurting it out, “I love every note. I’m a reader not a musician but still, I love every note. They’ll be able to see your brilliance.”

The boy turned and stared. Stared. He looked at Will like he was looking at something that he had never seen before. Like he was seeing an impossible vision. Will was suddenly nervous. No one looked at him like that. People looked at him because he was pretty but no one looked at him like they wanted to see his soul.

“Your music is beautiful,” Will said as simply as he could. He said it like he wasn’t getting lost in the eyes of a stranger. Will didn’t know his name. And yet he needed this person to know how amazing he was.  

“My music is passable,” he said.

“You’re one of those. I probably could have guessed if I was thinking about it, of course you’re one of those,” he said.

“Those?” he asked.

“Those people who down play their own achievements,” Will said.

“Would you rather I boast?” he asked. He was releasing his grip on the violin case as he talked. He leaned back against the bench beside Will and gave him a smile. It wasn’t his stage smile for charming crowds, this was more honest. Will gave him an exaggerated expression of consideration and then nodded. It got a laugh.

“No really, impress me,” Will teased.

“I went to Juilliard. I graduated with high honours though not quite top of my class. I am the only child of over achieving parents and that not quite the top was a bit of a disappointment. I do all the arrangements for the string quartet I am in. We mostly do weddings. I hate weddings but they pay well. This audition is for the symphony. The Symphony. I haven’t told my parents so they won’t be disappointed if I don’t get it,” he said.

Will laughed, “I’m sorry I asked. I feel a little incompetent just sitting here. Why play in the park?”

“It’s fun and no one expects me to be impressive,” he said with a shrug, “Symphony people are snotty and wedding people are high strung. I like to just play music without all of that. Last Tuesday an elderly couple waltzed while I played. They waltzed just because there was music and they could. I like it out here. Do you really come every week?”

Will considered lying because it was very nearly stalking but he’d already said it so he nodded, “I read, I listen, I hope I don’t get rained on.”

“And you hide over here while you do it?” he asked with a laugh.

“If I went and sat on your side of the tulip garden, it would be obvious that I was stalking you. I was trying to be discreet,” Will said hoping he could cover his creepiness with humour.  

“Shall I play on your side today or would you rather continue hiding?” he asked turning his violin case on his lap so that he could unlatch it. He had long narrow hands and was pulling his gloves off as he spoke and Will found himself noticing. Who knew that gloves were so damn interesting? Where did this boy get off having beautiful hands as well as everything else? Will shook the thoughts off as he looked out down the path at the overcast day.

“I can’t hide now,” Will said.

“True,” the violinist said, “I know you now, I’m going to be looking for you. Tell me your favourite. Today I’ll play for you. I like having someone to play for.”

Will blinked a few times and looked down at the little screen in his hands because he didn’t want to stare. He could feel the attention on him. It mattered. The answer to this question mattered. He didn’t know the name of a single piece of music but he didn’t want to choose something silly and be thought stupid by someone like this.

“The one from last week that sounds like flying,” he said.

He was taking out the violin as Will was thinking and was fussing with the bow when Will said that. He shook hair out of his eyes and lifted the instrument to play just a few bars. Will nodded. He hadn’t thought that his comment would make any sense.

“Now you need to tell me your name,” he said as he closed his case and checked the tuning on his instrument.

“William, Will,” he said.

“Lovely to meet you, Will. I’m James though a very small number of people call me Jem,” he said.

“Hello Jem,” Will said deciding to put himself in that small number just to see if he would be accepted. It earned him a smile.

“Hello,” Jem said and then he stood up, leaving his case open on the ground beside Will and his jacket tossed over the back of the bench. He was someone different again, the performer instead of just a person but he gave Will a smile before he started to play the piece that sounded like flying.

Today, Will didn’t pretend he wasn’t watching.


	8. Modern AU - Librarian/Avid Reader

“Your boy is back,” Bernice said wheeling a cart of books by the table in the backroom where Jem was glaring at the computer and trying to figure out why the cataloguing system kept shutting itself down.

“Thank you,” he said and Bernice wiggled her eyebrows at him before she took the cart out through the swinging door to go and shelve them. He waited until she was gone before he grinned and went to collect the pile of books he had ordered in from libraries across the region.

Out at the desk, Will was reading through a “What’s Happening!” newsletter and leaning. He always seemed to lean against something, desks, bookshelves, table tops. The first time Jem had met him, he had leaned down against the table where he was working and waited until he looked up. Jem had been weeding at the time, sorting out the books no one had checked out in years to be taken off the shelf.

“Do you work here?” the guy with dark hair and deep blue eyes had asked.

“No, I sort outdated books about fungus for fun,” Jem said holding up the book in his hand which looked like it had been printed in the 1970s and hadn’t been opened since that day.

“Right,” he said pulling it out of his hands and flipping it open to a poorly drawn diagram of a field mushroom, “Thrilling stuff.”

“Yes, I work here,” Jem said. He was very good at charming little old ladies in search of Nora Roberts novels. He was very good at convincing small children to attempt to read chapter books. He was not good at finding things to say to attractive young men with graceful fingers and sarcastic smiles.

“If I needed books on the histories of hauntings in the area, where would I start?” he asked.

“Start in the 130s or try the catalogue,” was Jem’s immediate answer. It came out flat and sarcastic because this guy was really attractive and it was short circuiting his brain. Besides, he was probably screwing around, young people who knew how to use computers didn’t ask questions like that.

“Ok, right, yes, but what about after I’ve read those ones? My friend said that you can special order in series she wants to read. Can you special order in reference material too?” he asked. “I’m looking for books on hauntings in the south or central British Isles.”

The rest of that afternoon had been spent with William Herondale leaning over his shoulder as they paged through catalogues for every library within a hundred miles and making lists. Will was sharp and bright and funny and he went from attractive to heart stopping when he laughed. He laughed often as he discovered how little Jem believed in ghosts and how many of the things he said were sarcastic. Most people never got Jem’s comments but here Will was cracking up at every joke.

Now he was back. Jem took a moment to carefully stack up the books. He had had too long to think about that afternoon. He had read things in that hadn’t happened and he’d talked himself out of anything that might have. He was going to be awkward and end up saying something utterly inappropriate. Will didn’t look up from the engrossing read about the Thursday evening knitting circle as Jem quietly put the books on the desk and slid them across the table.

Will flashed him that smile when he noticed. Big and bright and better than Jem remembered it. Whatever he had wanted he was going to say fled before that smile. He returned it and their eyes held in an elastic moment.

“Your books came in,” Jem said.

“I can see that,” Will said.

“What are you going to do with them?” Jem asked.

“Read them. It’s the primary function of a book, to be read,” Will said.

“Is it really? Here I thought it was to decorate the walls not displaying the DVD rentals,” Jem said which got him one of Will’s laughs.

“I’m a writer. History mostly but all this,” he waved at his stack of books, “Is research for a novel that I will never finish because fiction is ridiculous.”

“Can I read it?” Jem asked.

“Never finishing it,” Will said.

“That’s an awful lot of work for never finishing it,” Jem said looking at the books.

“You don’t know many authors do you?” Will said and then he leaned over the desk into just the edge of Jem’s personal space, “Let me tell you a secret. We aren’t made of blood and bone, we’re made of unfinished manuscripts and brilliant ideas that never work. Also coffee.”

“Librarians on the other hand are made of organizational systems, anticipation for new releases and funding crises. And also coffee,” Jem said.

“So you’re asking me out for coffee then?” Will asked raising his eyebrows. For a moment Jem was 14 again and saying the wrong thing and about to get punched but only a moment. Will was still leaning across the desk and he was still smiling.

“I don’t know, I hear authors can’t commit and never finish what they start,” came out of Jem’s mouth.

Will’s smile got wider, “True and librarians probably don’t have enough money to buy a cup of decent coffee.”

“I’m offended, you definitely aren’t getting coffee now,” Jem said. He had no idea how to flirt and yet, here he was leaning his elbows down against the desk to match up with Will’s body language and get just a little closer.

“Fine, then,” Will said standing up and stepping back and the fluttery feeling in Jem’s chest crashed down into bits. He had no idea what he was doing and he had somehow made a mess of it. Why didn’t he have a normal sense of humour? Why was he so incompetent at human interaction? He had no idea what to say to salvage this.

“I’ll buy you cake too,” Jem said.

“Chocolate?” Will asked leaning back down.

“Absolutely,” Jem said.

Will grabbed a note pad off of Jem’s side of the desk, passing close enough that Jem now knew what his hair smelled like. He scribbled some things down and then tucked the little square of paper into Jem’s hand before he flashed him a grin.

“See you soon,” he said and then he took his pile of books and sauntered away leaving Jem to stare after him.


	9. Modern AU - Neighbours

The guy lived across the courtyard in an apartment that was pretty much identical to Jem’s and he didn’t get dressed in the morning. Jem sat out on his balcony with coffee early in the morning for the fresh air and he caught sight of the new neighbor only a few days afyer he moved in. The apartment was full of cardboard boxes, had no curtains and one dark haired inhabitant who slept in a pair of boxers and nothing else.

Once he’d finished getting moved in, he didn’t seem to register that that his windows opened onto a shared courtyard. Jem couldn’t be the only one to see him standing shirtless in his kitchen watching the kettle boil with his hair a nest of black curls. It was awkward and that he was so atrociously hot did not make it less awkward.

The first time they met was in the elevator and Mr Hot and Half Naked was wearing a suit with the collar unbuttoned. A pair of girls Jem had seen around got off on the floor below with a fit of giggles as the elevator doors slid shut.

“What do you think that was?” he asked and Jem looked over at him and felt himself colour so he went back to staring at the doors.

“They live just below me,” Jem said.

“Ah well, that explains nothing, thank you,” he said.

Jem laughed in spite of the awkwardness, the elevator doors and slid open and they lingered in the hallway before going in separate directions. The guy in the suit turned to leave and in a fit of madness Jem said, “You might invest in curtains.”

“You might invest in a sweater, don’t you freeze out there in the morning at this time of year?” he shot back.

Jem turned to stare and the blush was back. His neighbor cracked a half grin, “If you ever come over, I’ll close the curtains.”

Then he turned and walked off down the hall leaving Jem to stare after him, his face scarlet.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Holy pick up lines, William. Look at you pretending you aren't a HUGE nerd.


	10. Sci-Fi AU - Space Jail

Someone somewhere had read their history books and decided that penal colonies were the wave of the future. William Herondale wasn’t sure he agreed with them on that but the terraformed domes on Mars needed labourers and so criminals were being sent. 

He was not a particularly heinous criminal. He was a thief in a community where everyone was a thief because if you didn’t steal it, you probably wouldn’t get to eat. Will had also stolen a lot of other things that weren’t food. You didn’t get sent to other planets for stealing stale bread. 

They’d gone in statis and now the pods were popping open. They’d have another two days inside while the atmosphere in the ship was equalized with the one outside of it. The oxygen levels were higher but the nitrogen levels were lower and a body needed to be acclimatized to it slowly. So said the brochures. 

Will wandered the length of the ship, getting a sense of the other men. There were women’s colonies as well but they didn’t arrive in the same shipments. It was not going to be an enjoyable ten years if these were the people he had to befriend. 

He heard the coughing as he reached the end of a row and came around to see a man with unnaturally pale hair sitting in his pod and smothering a cough in his hand. Will handed him a bottle of water from a dispenser on the wall and he took it without looking up. 

Will recognized him right away. They’d gone to school together right up until the point that Will had dropped out and gone looking for more interesting things to learn than state sponsored history with it’s gaping holes in logic and facts and a standardized English that no one spoke anywhere but in class. Back then, Jem Carstairs had been well behaved right up to the point that he started to ask impossible questions. Will wouldn’t have been surprised if he was on the boat as a political dissident.  

“I can’t believe I’m sitting in space jail with you of all people,” he said. 

“You would end up arrested,” Jem said to him. He didn’t look well and Will’s sarcasm faltered as he took in his pale skin and red rimmed eyes. Will didn’t wait for an invitation. He lifted himself up and dropped himself into the pod beside Jem. 

“What’d you do? Break into a rally and yell at the president for being wrong?” Jem asked. 

“Stole roughly 400 terrabytes of books and old newspapers from an archive,” Will said. 

“Why?” he asked. 

“They were going to destroy it all,” Will told him and he smiled, “They didn’t. Incidentally, not that it matters at this point but though I got caught, all that data, made it to the hand off. It’s probably already all copied and uploaded.”

“You’re sitting on Mars, don’t sound so smug about it,” Jem said. 

“I take pride in it,” Will said, “It is important to feel a sense of pride in your work otherwise you’ll never truly succeed in life.” 

“Once again, you’re on a penal colony in space,” Jem said. 

“So are you,” Will told him. He grabbed Jem’s pillow set it up at his back and leaned against the side of the pod with his feet thrown over the other edge. Jem looked at him. “What did you do?”

“I’m a medical experiment gone wrong,” he said. 

Will almost laughed but looking at him and his flat expression made him change his mind. 

“And you’re being sent out here to die?” Will asked. 

“Mostly I’m being sent out here because my existence is technically illegal as I am carrying genetically altered cells. That they’re my cells doesn’t seem to matter to the law. I was arrested for stealing materials from the trial. They’re in my bone marrow so giving them back would requiring removing my skeleton and draining my blood. Sending me to Mars is probably cheaper, just sweep the whole thing under the rug. Though, for all that, I’m likely not going to last long in a labour camp with lungs like these,” Jem told him with a shrug. 

Will stared at him but Jem was looking out over the little hallway at the line of empty pods and the strangers milling around, comparing notes about the crimes they had committed and the old myths of Bowie Base One and how no one came home from Mars no matter what they told you.

Will held out a hand and Jem stared at it until Will said, “You keep me sane, I’ll keep you alive.”

Jem smiled and took his hand. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Jem’s enhancements are actually enhancements. His tissues are being altered but it is a slow process. The lab he was in was a military one that needed instant results. He’s actually the only one who survived. He didn’t tell Will but he escaped and went public. Having him arrested (and using the rather powerful dystopian state media this world has going on to discredit him) and sending him to a penal colony was cleaner than killing him. 
> 
> But someone is going to notice. 
> 
> He’s going to go from nearly dead - only really surviving because Will’s picking up most of his slack - to powerful and it is going to be noticed. There’ll be a scene where Will get’s injured and Jem donates blood to him (something no one in that environment would usually volunteer to do because it would weaken them and they’re living in a labour camp) and that leads to the two of them having these enhancements. 
> 
> I don’t know yet if they’re purely physical or if there are telepathic powers too. 
> 
> Eventually a storm hits and knocks out power/contact/etc and the prisoners riot and take the dome. Will’s a rebel/spy with tech skills and Jem was a med student before he became a test subject and the rest of their crew knows there’s something up with them. They very quickly rise up as leaders in a leaderless chaos. 
> 
> They gather a crew around them. Henry who knows the hardware stuff that Will doesn’t. A Charlotte character (still deciding if we have a mix gender group here or if it’s a men’s colony only) who can organize the crews and keep the farms functioning so they aren’t starving or losing oxygen. A Sophie character to be the back end organizer (keeping supply lines moving that kind of thing). 
> 
> There’s a lot of prison break in this. This is just coming out as I type. 
> 
> Benedict Lightwood shows up as our major antagonist - he’s the leader of the guards - deposed but not dead. 
> 
> Charlotte is also a member of the official organization (scratch that earlier part). I’m thinking she’s a member of the company that runs everything and she was up for an inspection when everything went to hell. I am thinking we can throw in a Henry/Charlotte subplot.
> 
> Tessa is there to visit Nate. (Mars is actually a bit of a vacation destination if you’re in the nicer domes). She’s also a piece of the same study that Jem was but had managed to slip out of it without knowing what happened to her - her mother had been pregnant when she’d undergone the treatments. The treatment had eventually killed her but her baby survived. Tessa doesn’t know she’s anything special. 
> 
> Somehow the three of them together are stronger than they would be on their own. 
> 
> It heads (in true dystopic teen fiction fashion) to eventually leading to a government over throw.


	11. Accidentally at a Sex Club

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This one skirts the non-con line.   
> It's also got not-very-graphic a blow job in it.   
> And hasn't been edited properly.   
> *bad fanfic author, no cookie*

"What are you doing?" Jem asked.

"Keeping us from blowing our cover," Will muttered in his ear.

Will had spun them around and slammed Jem back against the wall with his full body weight. Jem had pushed back on instinct and Will had leaned in and left him immobile without even having to try. Then Will grabbed his face and turned him so they were nose to nose.

"What is our cover?" Jem asked.

"Well, five minutes ago our cover was that we were young degenerate shadowhunters looking to gamble and drink where the Clave wouldn't find us but this is not a gambling den," Will said.

"Do I want to know what kind of club you think it is?"

"Definitely a sex club," Will said.

"Fuck."

"Yes, exactly."

Then Will kissed him. Hard and deep and with his hand caught on Jem's cheek, keeping his head tilted up so he couldn't move. He started to pull back but he was already pinned to the wall. Anyone else, he would have hit but this was Will and a moment later, Will pulled back. It took Jem a second to remember how to close his mouth or speak.

"Fuck you," Jem said.

"Already? Do I really have that much of an effect on you?"

"You're not funny."

"We're here to make out where the Clave won't notice, it's a good cover story. No one is going to question it too hard," Will said.

"Goddamn it," Jem said.

"It'll be a little bit fun, I'm an excellent kisser," Will said.

"I hate you sometimes," Jem said.

"But I'm a good kisser."

"It doesn't count if you've got someone pinned to a wall."

Will backed off a little bit. Jem could have turned and left. It would have been a perfectly reasonable tactical choice. Just turn around and walk out of that hellish place that smelled of smoke and booze and things he probably didn't want to be able to identify. But Will gave him this half grin and something welled up in him. It was mixed up in the annoyance at being held down and kissed without warning. It felt competitive and just a little bit angry as it built in his chest. He grabbed hold of Will's collar and pulled him in for another kiss. The kiss wasn't competitive or angry. It was soft and careful and left Will blinking at him.

"You're not that good a kisser," Jem said. "I could probably teach you how to do that like I taught you how to throw knives but you may just never be a good kisser."

"If I can't learn, I think we can both agree that it's the teacher's fault, not the student's," Will said.

 

They found a little settee in a corner where they could watch what was going on in the room while still being completely wrapped up in each other. Jem couldn't do both. Will kept nuzzling his neck and it was destroying his ability to do anything at all. When Will was distracted, or when he was only petting Jem's hair and was managing to keep his mouth to himself, Jem could keep himself together but Will's mouth was immensely and unavoidably distracting.

"There he is," Will said.

He said it into Jem's skin and Jem had to push back from Will's hold to even remember who this person was. They were there to track a demon dressed up as a man. That was the entire point of this visit. This was about following dangerous monster and isolating it so that it could be killed. At some point in the last hour, the point of the evening had gotten lost in his parabatai's hands and mouth and everything else.

"Shit," Will said a moment later.

"What?"

"We're Nephilim, we attract attention," Will said.

"Bad attention?"

"Demonic attention."

"Shit," Jem echoed.

He was sitting in Will's lap and had been for awhile. Having Will on top of him had short circuited every thought. Every single one. This was distracting but it was manageable. When he had been the one sitting on the sofa and it had been Will's knees to either side of him and Will's chest in his face and Will's weight against his body, that had been too much. Will had his hands on Jem's hips and his grip tightened.

"Good evening," he said.

He tugged Jem in a little tighter to his body as he said it. Jem took the cue and snuggled in closer. He kept his hands free but let his head fall against Will's shoulder as he turned to look at the people that Will had greeted. The demon. Their demon. The one they were planning on killing that evening. And a pair of warlocks on either side of him. Probably his sons. He was famous for fathering children on mundane women, eating the daughters and the mothers and raising the sons. The demon was an incubus of some kind. It looked human enough but it wasn't. Jem could feel the evil radiating from it. He pressed closer to Will to keep himself from lashing out to early.

"I hope we aren't breaking any rules," Will said. "We're not here for trouble."

"Nephilim are always trouble."

"Oh, yes. I am trouble. I lead nice boys astray and drink myself stupid five times a week. I'm trouble. I'm just not here to cause trouble. I've got enough," he said grabbing hold of Jem's hips and pulling their bodies together a little tighter.

It would have been utterly mortifying if Will wasn't harder than he was. Will was a lot harder than he was. For a second, that was all Jem could think about. His head was down against Will's shoulder, he probably looked drunk. He probably looked high. Fuck. He was nearly boneless in Will's hold. He wanted the moment of privacy back, the one where Will would kiss his neck and hold him close.

Demon.

There was a demon. They were talking to a demon.

Jem hadn't spoken to a demon since Yanluo. He had faced demons but mostly the lesser demons, the kind that were just destructive animals. This one spoke with a cultured accent and wore a nice suit. The demons that played at being human were always more dangerous. Always. This one was bad. This one had earned a death sentence a hundred times over and yet it was still walking around, trading little verbal barbs with Will.

"If your bit of trouble," the demon touched Jem's back and he would have whirled and hit him if Will hadn't grabbed his hips hard enough to hurt, "Will suck you off on stage, I might believe you."

"Oh come now," Will said.

"What?" the demon's voice was even and smug.

"If someone gets to show off, let it be me. He'll just get stage fright," Will said.

"If that's your preference," the demon said.

Will was lifting Jem to his feet and turning him around before he'd fully processed what had just happened.

"No," he said.

"This is a test," Will said.

"So let's fail."

"It's a bad test to fail. See they want to know if the Clave is watching us tonight, ready to rush in and end the evil of this place. The Clave isn't watching. If it was, we'd get in all kinds of trouble for what he wants us to do. This isn't about being shy. This is about making sure we don't lose this place," Will said.

Jem had pitched his voice as a secret. Will had pitched his louder. This was the cover story. Fuck. They were too deep into this place to launch a proper escape. They didn't have Clave backup. They didn't actually have full clearance to be here. Charlotte had sent them on a reconnaissance mission. They were not supposed to come in the front door. They had taken a risk and they'd caught attention and doubling down on the cover story was the only option now that didn't involve attempting to make an escape through the window or attempting to kill half the room on their way to the door.

"I love you," Will said.

Jem froze.

"I love you and you can just ignore everyone else. This is just about you and me. Just like it always is. We can have one place in this city where we don't have to keep this secret. This is the price. It's not that a high a price to pay," Will said.

Right. Yes. Cover story. Parabatai in love, hiding it from the Clave. Simple. Easy. Cover story.

"I don't want to go on that stage," Jem said.

"Me neither," Will said.

"We'll just leave," Jem said.

"They're not going to let us just leave," Will said.

This was a conversation that other people would overhear. They were backstage now, in the dark space behind the curtains. They were not the only couple back there. They hung close together without deciding on it. Will had his arm slung around Jem's waist. Jem had his arm curled around Will's shoulder. They were forehead to forehead, nose to nose.

"All you have to do is lie back and close your eyes and ignore everything," Will said.

"Fuck."

"Stop swearing, it's unbecoming."

"Stop putting me in situations where I have to have my cock sucked in front of an audience and maybe I will."

Jem's anger was within the bounds of the character he was playing so he didn't try to calm it. He wasn't happy. He wasn't happy with Will or this place or the plan or the cover story. He wanted to punch things until he'd reestablished something that felt safe and secure. No one else had ever touched him like this and he did not want that to happen at  sex club full of Downworlders who would think less of him not only for his obvious drug addiction but also for having his cock out in a public place.

"Better plan?" Will asked.

And that was the problem. Jem didn't have a better plan. Fighting their way out wasn't a possibility. Now that they'd been targeted by the demon who ran the place, there wasn't an option of sneaking out the back either. The security back stage was for them. Obviously for them. Everyone else knew it too. Everyone else cast them nervous glances. This was a test. A test that they had left themselves without a choice to sit.

Will got close enough to whisper in his ear so quietly that no one else would hear it, "I'm sorry I got us into this, just close your eyes and pretend it isn't happening and I will do everything else. I have never done this but I've seen it done once and I'm pretty I can make it look good. Just try and relax."

"Fuck you," Jem said.

"I know, I'm sorry."

And that was how he ended up with his pants down on a public stage while Will knelt between his knees and ran a hand over his stomach and thighs. Jem just closed his eyes and tilted his head back and tried to keep from panicking.

Will's hand on his cock was electric and left him gasping. Just a hand. A hand curled around it to point it in the right direction. Then Will had closed his mouth over it and Jem had forgotten how to function as a human being. The mix of anxiety and sensation and Will was too much. Will was his safe space. When the world was more than he could take, when his own dreams or thoughts or memories were more than he could take, he would find Will and roll in close and fill all those cracks in himself with Will. To have Will be a part of something that was so alarming was making it all worse.

He kept his eyes shut. No one else was there. It was a hard illusion to get to because he could hear the crowd. Will had closed his mouth around Jem's cock and that pushed it all out. The sensation surprised him. Less and more than he had expected. Wet and warm and intimate. Will's mouth. Will's hand on his hip. He didn't know what to do with his hands and one ended up curled around the arm of the chair tight enough to splinter the wood and the other curled into Will's hair to hold onto him.

Jem still didn't open his eyes.

Suction. A hand on his thighs. The drag of lips. The feel of Will's hair in his fingers.

It was more than he could handle.

It wasn't enough.

It was awful.

It was perfect.

Wet and deep. Will's mouth slid down further than Jem had thought it could possibly go. Will's nose brushed his stomach and that was the last bit of sensation that he could manage. He arched his back and cried out and came in a rush. He came hard and fast and Will didn't stop as he squirmed and made unimaginably embarrassing sounds. He didn't fully come back to himself until they were off the stage and Will had him curled up in his arms.

"Fuck off," Will was saying to some emissary of the demon who seemed very entertained by the show. Jem couldn't focus in on the words, he didn't want to focus in on the words, he wanted to be left alone. It happened eventually.

"Sorry," Will said.

"Next time, no audience," Jem said.

Will laughed. It was a harsh sound, "If you insist."

"I think I might have really enjoyed that if there wasn't an audience."

"Damn it, James," Will said.

Jem looped his arms around Will's neck and held on before Will's annoyance could become something that involved pushing him away. He held on tight and nuzzled Will's neck below his ear.

"I'm not mocking you. Please don't go anywhere," Jem said.

"You're a bastard," Will said.

"So are you," Jem shot back.

Will didn't let go of him and for a little while, they just existed in each other's arms, pretending the rest of the world didn't exist at all and couldn't touch them even if it did. Jem matched his breathing to Will's and used the pace of inhales and exhales to track how upset his parabatai was. It took Will a long time to calm down and even longer for both of them to untangle themselves and head back out into the real world.


	12. Aubade

Will liked it here. He rolled over into Jem wrapped him up closer. Jem squirmed and Will pushed him onto his side so that he could pull their bodies together. Spoons in a drawer. It was a nice metaphor. Jem was still asleep but he settled into the hold and Will smiled at he back of his neck.

“I need to rewrite the music for you,” Jem said.

“Music?” Will asked. “I thought you were asleep.”

“I was but you woke me up.”

“Music?” Will repeated the question. 

“Everyone is a song. Notes and rhythms and rising melodies. You can write a life in music if you know a person well enough. I need to adjust yours. There wasn’t enough of this in it.”

“This?”

Jem pressed in a little closer instead of answering. His shoulders were nestled back against Will’s chest and he’d tilted his head back in just the right way to make room for Will to kiss a line from his collar to his jaw. He didn’t say a word as Will pressed a slow line of kisses up his throat but he murmured happily as it happened.

“You’re different first thing in the morning. Softer than you usually are. Slower and smoother and not quite as bright before the sun has risen,” Jem finally said.

“Will you play me that song? The one you wrote about me?” Will asked.

Jem shifted slightly. “Yes. Someday.”

“Good, I want to hear what you think of me.”

“I love you. That’s what I think of you,” Jem said.

“I love you too, but what I think of you is more complex than that.”

Jem laughed. Will pulled him in a little tighter and kissed his neck again. Jem relaxed. He wasn’t awake yet and Will let himself enjoy the feeling of Jem drifting back to sleep, curled in his arms. 


	13. Quiet Afternoon

Jem was picking at the strings of his violin trying to decide if the strings needed changed or just tuned. Will was sprawled out on the nearest sofa in the living room. His leg dangled off the edge and he was holding a book up over his face in what had to be an uncomfortable position.

“Listen to this,” Will said.

He leaned over and tapped Jem’s knee with the book he was holding. He had his finger tucked in the page and when Jem looked up, he flipped it open and started to read. Jem recognized a few lines of the poem. Maya Angelou maybe? Something Tessa liked and had read him before.

Will glanced up from the passage and gave him a grin. It was one of this eloquent smiles that only Will could ever manage, it said, ‘I know you don’t care about poetry but I liked it too much not to share, don’t be annoyed.’

“The rules are different for the poetry now. I’m still getting used to it but I like that bit,” Will said.

“I missed this,” Jem said.

“Do you want me to be more annoying? I can probably squash out any last dregs of nostalgia if I try hard enough.”

“No. You can’t,” Jem said. You’re obnoxiousness is part of what makes you endearing.“

"Don’t be a douche.”

“Do I want to know where you learned that?”

“It doesn’t matter,” Will said. He reached out and hit Jem in the knee with the book again. “If you’re willing to be indulgent, I’m going to read you another. Hang on.”

Then he was rolling up off the sofa and heading for Tessa’s bookshelves to pick up another volume. Jem set his violin aside and when Will came back they sat down together and Will didn’t question it when Jem leaned in so their shoulders were pressed together.


	14. Modern AU - Crisis Line

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Content warning on this one: drug addiction and some implied suicide talk.

Will groped for the phone and put it up to his ear without checking the number. He’d been prepared to threaten anyone who dared wake him on a Sunday night when he had roughly 29 hours of work to do on Monday morning and nothing in his schedule seemed to care that only 24 hours existed in the entire day. The voice on the other end started talking before he could say a thing.

“I’m going to relapse and I don’t think I’ll ever be able to come back again,” the voice started soft, a young man’s, “I don’t know what happened. Everything was fine. I thought everything was fine and then I went by the house on Broad street and as much as I hated it,” the venom in the words made Will’s assumption that this was a prank grind to a halt, “And I did hate it. But just seeing the place out of a bus window made me want it.”

His voice continued low and calm but punctuated by moments of sharp anger and painful regret that sunk back into calm a moment later. He spun out a story in little broken fragments that Will started cobbling back together. A child intentionally addicted to something as an attack on his parents though the voice left out the whys and hows. Teenage years spent bouncing through foster homes and shelters. And a painfully long recovery that was hanging by a thread.

He just kept talking and Will couldn’t bring himself to interrupt or hang up the phone though he was neither a therapist nor a crisis line.

“Wouldn’t it be easier to just stop?” the voice finally let his spinning narrative pause.

“Easier isn’t better,” Will said wondering if that was too awful and cliche.

“Who the fuck are you? You are not Dr. Fairchild,” he said.

“You must have miss dialed,” Will said cringing.

“And you just let me….” he sounded offended. Will wanted to argue but then he was saying, “I am so sorry. So so sorry. Bye.”

“Wait, don’t fucking hang up,” Will half yelled into the phone.

“I must have woke you up, go back to sleep, it’s 3am,” he said.

“Are you alright? Where are you?” Will asked.

“Does it matter?” he asked.

“Yes, yes it matters, where are you?” he said.

“Are you going to ask what I’m wearing next?” he said and in spite of being pretty sure he was talking to someone standing outside a drug den, Will laughed.

“Will you tell me?” Will asked because something about the thread of humour in his voice when he’d said that made Will worry just a little less and believe maybe this person was going to be alright.

“Jeans, blue hoodie, black boots,” he said.

“It is too damn hot this time of year for damn boots, go home and put on some flip flops,” Will said.

“I like my damn boots. Amateur therapist and amateur fashion critic,” he said.

“I’ll come pick you up, we can go to that 24 hour dollar store and buy you flip flops,” Will was surprised as he said it to realize that he meant it.

“I am literally a junkie. Nice boys don’t get out of bed to take junkies to dollar stores,” he said.

“You are a recovered junkie and besides I am not a nice boy,” Will said and the guy on the phone laughed. It was bright and musical for a moment and then it exploded into hysterics for a long enough time that Will sure that he’d somehow made it worse not better.

“Recovering not recovered. It isn’t over, it’s never going to be over,” he said once he’d reeled the laughter back in. Will could hear the smile leech out of his voice as he spoke.

“You either keep fighting or you lose,” Will said.

“You’re full of inspiration, I’m so glad you’re my wrong number, you should consider taking up counseling,” he said in dripping sarcasm which was far better than crushing despair.

“Fine. Then you ignore the big metaphorical fight entirely and come to the dollar store. I’ll buy you the fucking flip flops,” Will said.

“You need to let the flip flops go,” he said.

“Ok then meet me on the bridge at midnight, come alone,” Will said.

“It’s 4:23 am, you missed midnight, you are shit at this,” he said.

“Breakfast then,” Will tried again. He needed to know, needed to be sure that this stranger made it through the night without losing 3 years of putting his life together again. He couldn’t walk away. He was going to have to call in sick on all 29 hours of oh so essential work and he didn’t care. That was numbers and paper. This was so much more important.

“Are you a serial killer?” the guy asked.

“Yup,” Will said, “I target wrong numbers. My last victim was a 90 year old woman named Irene who argued with me for fifteen about whether or not I was actually Margaret.”

“She obviously had it coming,” he was laughing again.

“My name is Will. I live on Waterford street and I will come pick you up and take you to breakfast if you need me to,” Will said in as serious voice as he could manage.

“My name is Jem, I’m standing on Queen Street and I’ll pay,” he said.

Will got dressed and drove out there without putting the phone down. Jem mocked him about flip flops, asked after Irene, let slip just a few more details though the open sharing of that first long monologue didn’t come back.

Jem, it turned out was a very tall man about Will’s age with pale hair and wary eyes. He leaned down and looked in the window that Will had rolled down and seemed at a loss of what to say.

“Come on then, I was promised that you would pay and I have been up for nearly three hours bow without coffee,” he said.

The stranger slid into the car without a word. Will glanced at him as he drove through the empty streets in search of anything open before 5 am. As they were crossing a bridge he finally spoke.

“Thank you.”


End file.
